


but there's nothing to hold on to

by seventhstar



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: Angst, Despair, M/M, canon did it first, nasch and the endless angst parade, relationships destroyed by time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-14
Updated: 2015-02-14
Packaged: 2018-03-12 07:57:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3349541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seventhstar/pseuds/seventhstar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>interlude between seasons 5 and 6. durbe asks what nasch is thinking.</p>
            </blockquote>





	but there's nothing to hold on to

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rangerhitomi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rangerhitomi/gifts).



“What are you thinking, Nasch?”

Nasch didn’t answer. Durbe had made no sound as he climbed the stairs; until he spoke, Nasch hadn’t known he was behind him at all. Durbe had always been stealthy — but before, he had always made the effort to not startle Nasch, out of respect or certainty that Nasch was not a threat.

He surveyed the lightning cracking the sky above, the dull pink crystal landscape spread out below. It all looked the same, and yet Nasch kept looking for changes. It seemed wrong. How could the world have remained unchanged when he felt completely different?

“You seem troubled.” Durbe came closer. If he reached out, Nasch thought, he could touch him. Before, he would not have hesitated.

_Before._

[He means to lay down in the grass, but instead he ends up with his head in Durbe’s lap. He can feel the scratchy fabric of his pants against his face, worn thin by too many training sessions and not enough money for replacements.

Not that Durbe could not have them, if he wanted. Nasch would give them to him. But Durbe feels beholden to him, and will never ask.

Durbe’s legs are warm from the sunlight. The beaches on the mainland are much nicer than the ones on his island city, and here in the wilderness, there is no fear that they’ll be caught behaving inappropriately. That’s what Nasch tells himself, when he is reminded that he should move: the afternoon is warm and Durbe is comfortable and no one has to know anything.

Durbe cards his fingers through his hair.

“You’re thinking.”

“Don’t sound so surprised.” There’s no bite to his voice. Nasch closes his eyes, the inside of his eyelids red, and concentrates on the sounds of the waves. They used to keep Durbe up at night, and Nasch never understood why: he could not imagine being far from the ocean, could not imagine a silence that wasn’t accompanied by the rhythm of the tide.

“We’re supposed to be training.”

“We are. You’re learning how to withstand the heat.”

Durbe’s homeland apparently is so cold it turns his breath to clouds, and makes the water solidify, and the rain into little white crystals. It sounds like a fairy tale to Nasch. It’s fitting; Durbe, too, is a little bit unreal, solid and quiet and grey, indefinably separate from everyone around him.

“You would have made a good king,” Nasch says.

Durbe doesn’t seem bothered by Nasch’s words, by the danger in them. Durbe is never bothered by Nasch’s inability to pretend politeness in front of him. He plays with Nasch’s hair, which is getting long again, and leans forward so that his face blocks out the sun.

Nasch looks up at him. Durbe is blocking his view of the sky, and he’s sweaty and pale and tired-looking, but even so, Nasch thinks, the sky can’t compare.

Very soon Durbe will be gone. That’s why Nasch brought him out here, to the mainland, where they could be alone. He is hoarding little bits of him inside himself, for later, when Durbe is not there.

He’ll be wasted on the king of his home kingdom, the king he’s going to go serve, and Nasch knows that that is unfair but he doesn’t care, really, because that king won’t know that Durbe is a cunning strategist and studies philosophy and to use him like a pawn on the board of war is to make no use of him at all.

 _I couldn’t ask him to die for me,_ Nasch thinks, and he knows that’s not the way a king should behave.

But right now he is only a prince and right now Durbe is still here. Nasch is sun-drunk and acutely aware of time ticking away and the shade of Durbe’s face makes everything seem like a good idea — even taking Durbe’s free hand and pressing the inside of his wrist to his mouth like Durbe is one of the princesses Nasch is supposed to be charming.

Durbe does not have soft hands or delicate skin, but there is something beautiful in the way battle has scarred and thickened his skin just the same.]

This was after, though. Nasch looked at Durbe over his shoulder; he had no idea what Durbe was thinking.

“Is something on your mind, my friend?” Durbe asked.

 _Is that what we are?_ Nasch wondered. _There was a time when you wouldn’t have needed to ask. When you always knew what I was thinking._

“Nothing.”

_There was a time when I would have told you._

It wasn’t even a lie. The memories were poignant, but the pain was dulled; it had belonged to another Nasch, a Nasch that was pure, and this new version of himself all diluted with human blood and corrupted by kindness could no longer feel it.

There was just a sense of emptiness now; when it was all over, and the Barian World was saved, what would be left for him, when he no longer fit here or there or anywhere else?


End file.
